


Butterfly Effect

by the1the8



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Butterfly Effect, Fluff, M/M, attempt at soulmate, little mention of jun, who is seokmin's partner? you guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-20
Updated: 2017-10-20
Packaged: 2019-01-20 03:55:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12424524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the1the8/pseuds/the1the8
Summary: It’s not that Seungkwan’s desperate to meet his soulmate, but it’s the peer pressure around him that makes him want to. He has a lot going on in his mind, but he has come to the conclusion that whatever happens whether he meets his soulmate soon or not, he knows he will meet his one day as he doesn’t realize how close that “one day” will be.





	Butterfly Effect

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seungsols](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seungsols/gifts).



> here's my attempt at soulmate au;;
> 
> and happy birthday to my best buddy ally! ily ♡

Seungkwan is walking outside on a beautiful day of fall. The sun is shining brightly and the trees has changed their colors. Some have no leaves while some stay green. Seungkwan, with a textbook in one arm, looks up at the sky and regrets it as he closes his eyes tightly in pain from the sun. It doesn’t help with his fried brain after sleeping for less than three hours the night before for pulling through an essay that was due that morning because he had volleyball games. He couldn’t even stay awake in class just now as he sighs. He looks down at his sweatpants from being almost late for class and the thought that at least he’s done with classes for the day comes to mind. Thank goodness it’s Friday and all Seungkwan can think of is bothering his future botanist best friend and roommate, Seokmin, at the greenhouse lab in the biology building. Seokmin is always there even though he has no classes on Fridays. Seungkwan would always think, he should be hanging out with me, but he understands Seokmin because Seungkwan has class on Fridays and so does Seokmin’s partner. That’s why Seokmin would keep himself busy while they were gone and that means he would be taking care of his plants at the greenhouse lab. 

On the way there though, Seungkwan flinches at a butterfly that is flying at him. He squeals in shock, his fingers curl with his arms flying at his sides. It’s the fourth one that month. Seungkwan doesn’t like butterflies but they’ve been flying at him lately and he can’t seem to know why. He cringes with intimidation, walking away after the butterfly flies past him. 

Seungkwan opens the door slowly in the quiet laboratory with his head peeking in it. The room is dark as it has no windows and the only light sources come from the long lights on the lab desks that are against the walls of the room and the incandescent lights that are turned on above the columns and rows of plants at the center of the room. 

Seokmin obviously can see him from one of the desks he’s sitting at and with his body leaning back on his chair, he asks, “What are you doing there?” 

Seungkwan looks like he jerked from the sound of his voice. Probably because the way here was too quiet that any noise would scare the hell out of him. He frowns then comes inside and closes the door. “I was just trying to be sneaky, but you ruined it.” 

Seokmin laughs, going back to the lab reports on his desk. “Sorry.” 

Seungkwan shrugs and looks past a few rows of the plants and sees Jun, one of his longtime friends,  in a white laboratory coat. He looks like he’s doing something important with a tube in his hand and a plant in front of him so Seungkwan whispers to Seokmin, "What's that veterinarian doing here?" 

"Oh, did you forget? He's adding biology as a minor so now he has baby names too." A smile forms on Seokmin’s face, visible to Seungkwan. He smiles too, because he finds it cute having names for their own plants, just like how he named his volleyball pumpkin pie. That’s because he found love with pumpkin pies when he first got into volleyball. It was a source of strength when he felt like he was drained from his games and eating it that one night in middle school after his first game ever was the day he knew volleyball would be his life. 

Seungkwan walks over to him with his hands in his pockets. He stops next to Seokmin to look at the papers he’s working on even though he has no interest in them, but Seokmin notices him. There’s something sneaky about his quietness and he knows it’s not about being respectful in the room so he looks at Seungkwan whose lips are shaped in an ‘o’ as if he’s whistling with no sound and then he stops in position. 

“Why are you here?” Seokmin asks. 

That’s right. Seungkwan came here for a few reasons, not just to bother his friend. He tilts his head to the side and his finger taps onto his lower lip, wondering what he should say. “Well, you know.” He is obviously shy. His eyes meet Seokmin’s after avoiding them. “You’re the soulmate expert so…” 

“What? Something came again?” Seokmin smiles in interests. “Tell me.” 

Seungkwan excited face blooms, “It’s another butterfly. The fourth one actually and I have no clue what this means. I might be sad if seeing them meant nothing.” 

“Like nothing related to your soulmate?” Seokmin pats him in comfort. “Don’t worry, I’m sure it’s something meaningful.” 

Seungkwan sighs with a small frown then smiles at his friend. As he hopes so too, a jar hidden at the bottom of first row of plants with a cocoon in the shade of blue begins to break, wings moving, ready to be set out into the world. 

 

That evening, Seungkwan is outside again after heading out to eat some pumpkin pie at a restaurant a few blocks from his shared apartment. All he thinks of is how tasty the pie was and how the aroma is still roaming inside his body, creating happiness in his soul. He suddenly giggles at himself, probably set off from the savory pie before his face turns into horror when a blue butterfly flies at him. Seungkwan screams in surprise with his arms flying to his side again. He has deja vu of that morning and moves around the butterfly with his cringing face before he runs away as if he is being chased. 

Seungkwan ends up at the apartment with Seokmin nowhere in sight. He runs into his room and covers himself with his blanket. He shivers, with only his head popping out from his cover. He never thought of it but now he wonders why he hates butterflies so much. He doesn’t have an trauma with it, but maybe he just never had interactions with them. The thought of the yellow butterfly that flew at him that morning seemed to be the scariest to him. Actually all of them were terrifying because they came at him so randomly. He wasn’t ready to see another one just now, especially if it comes in different colors each time he encounters them. 

Then suddenly, something clicks in Seungkwan’s mind. He realizes the butterflies are coming in a rainbow color sequence: the first one was red, the second one was orange, the third was green, and the fourth one was yellow this morning and he just met the blue one. That means the next one will be indigo and then violet, then he would be able to meet his soulmate? Seungkwan’s eyes widen, he can’t believe it. 

Then, how long does it takes for a caterpillar to turn into a butterfly? Seungkwan gets up from his bed, throwing his cover against the wall behind him to open his laptop on his desk. He sits down and searches it up quickly, his fingers typing on his laptop keyboard aggressively with the last loud click on the enter bar. 10 days to several months. Seungkwan looks up, trying to calculate the times he have seen them. He saw them almost every 15 days, except for today, so that means he will see the next one around 15 days and the last one in a month, which would be in late October. Seungkwan tilts his head to the side and wonders, “Butterflies migrate during this time so there shouldn’t be any here by then?” 

Wait. Seungkwan pauses and slaps his face once. He just realizes he knows about butterflies even though he actually knows nothing about them. He gets off his chair, feeling freaky and a bit scared. His face flushes in red from shock and he just jumps onto his bed, face down with his legs curled up and a groan loud enough that Seokmin, who just came back, comes into the room with a worried look. Looking at the funny scene, he can’t help but laugh a little. 

“You okay there?” Seokmin asks then sees Seungkwan’s miserable face when he turns around and looks at him. Seokmin teasingly smiles widely, his white teeth shine from the illuminated sunset beam on Seungkwan’s desk and his eyes barely visible with the wrinkles at the sides. “Looks like you got butterflies in your stomach.” 

 

About ten days later, the rainbow butterflies doesn’t leave out of Seungkwan’s mind while he encountered the blue butterfly a few days ago. It didn’t scare him this time so he got to take a good look at it, as if he could feel a connection with it before it flew away. He hasn’t encounter the last butterfly yet but he knows it’s pretty soon. He keeps thinking about Seokmin and his partner and their “flowers” encounters that indicated that they were soulmates, and how Seokmin kept teasing him all week about rainbows and soulmates. He felt so dumb because Seokmin won’t tell him anything about soulmates. It’s not that he’s desperate to meet his, but it’s the peer pressure around him that makes him want to meet his. He has a lot going on in his mind, but he has come to the conclusion that whatever happens whether he meets his soulmate or not soon, he knows he will meet his one day as he doesn’t realize how close that “one day” will be. 

Seungkwan is heading to the laboratory to see Seokmin like the usual, but today, they planned to go eat out together for lunch since they ran out of groceries at the apartment and haven’t had the chance to go buy some because of midterms. 

Seungkwan walks into the dark room and sees a person sitting on the floor, assuming it’s Jun. “Hey Jun. You know where Seokmin is? Wanna join us for some lunchery?” He gestures eating at his mouth with a hand playing with the lunch word but he walks over with an annoyed face after he didn’t get a response. 

“A hungry boy shouldn’t have to repeat himself,” Seungkwan murmurs to himself then he kneels down behind the person and taps his shoulders. Vernon, holding onto a jar with a cracked violet cocoon that is closed with a white cloth on the top, turns around, making their noses almost touch. It causes a flush of blush against their faces. Seungkwan can only see his silhouetted face from the plant lights in front of him, including those long eyelashes in the dark then when he looks down at the jar in Vernon’s hands, his voice blows up as he falls onto his back. He struggles to get up then he runs away as if he is being chased, again. 

 

Turns out Seokmin went on a date with his partner when he left Seungkwan hanging, eating lunch and dinner alone that day. Morning comes and Seungkwan is eating alone for the third consecutive time without Seokmin. He gets lost into his grudged head of his roommate and eats the bagel in his hands, not realizing Seokmin is walking over with Vernon inside the light antique cafe with old music playing in the background. 

Seokmin sits down in front of him with Vernon as Seungkwan starts to feel butterflies in his stomach when he notices Vernon then he turns away in surprise and covers his mouth because there is a big bagel bread stuck in his front teeth. That isn’t the only reason why he turned away. Seungkwan thought about whether Vernon flashed a smile at him yesterday in the laboratory. His ears turn red and his eyes look angrily at Seokmin, who is holding a laugh with Vernon. 

“Are you okay, Seungkwan?” Seokmin asks without a worry, still holding onto his laugh. 

When Seungkwan finally gets the bread off from his teeth, he glares at Seokmin. “How dare you ditch me yesterday. Was your date great?” He sounds sarcastic as he points his head at Seokmin with a fake smile on his lips. Almost forgetting that Vernon is also there, he looks down at his food in embarrassment though he tries his best to not show it. 

Seokmin looks at Vernon, they give each other a funny look before they turn to look at the red-faced Seungkwan again. 

“What?” Seungkwan starts to sweat for some reason, not knowing why they are looking at him. 

“Have you met Vernon?” 

“I think…” Seungkwan says quietly, as if he’s blushing. It’s hard to look at Vernon as he keeps curling his lower lips inside his mouth. 

“Well, this is Vernon.” Seokmin gestures his hand at Vernon. “He wanted to meet you since he saw you every time you sneaked into our garden.” 

“I’m Seungkwan.” He says right after Seokmin finishes. He leans in with a smile, “It’s nice to meet you.” He tries to avoid eye contact again as he leans back and turns a little to his side, pretending to look outside the window. 

“I actually wanted to apologize about yesterday.” Vernon says. 

“What? You guys met already?” Seokmin sounds surprised, actually, he sounds really fake. 

“Seokmin, please.” He is trying too hard so Vernon whispers at him. Seokmin mouths a “sorry” and laughs quietly then Vernon turns to Seungkwan and smiles. 

“Well, it’s not really your fault. I just didn’t know it was you then.” Seungkwan hides his lower lip again as his hand fiddles onto his eaten bagel on his plate. 

“He didn’t know it was you, oh!” Seokmin pretends to be shocked again with his hand covering his mouth at Vernon and Vernon rolls his eyes at him then Vernon hears his name being called to pick his order up at the counter. 

When Vernon is at least five feet away, Seungkwan leans over the table and whispers, “How did you know it was him?” 

Seokmin does the same back and responds, “He told me about you.” 

“Like what?” 

“Pumpkin pies.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah, I knew it was you.” 

Seungkwan sees Seokmin’s cringing face because Seokmin doesn’t like pumpkin pies so he fights back and says, “Hey, at least butterflies are better than flowers.” 

Seungkwan sticks out his tongue at Seokmin, who actually saw rainbow flowers before meeting his soulmate then Seokmin does the same back to Seungkwan before Vernon come back with a violet pie in his hands. He sets it down without them realizing its color as Seungkwan and Seokmin are still glaring at each other. They don’t realize Vernon is staring at Seungkwan, admiring his loveable facial expressions and features. 

 

“Geez, Seokmin didn’t have to leave us together like this.” Seungkwan sarcastically says to get Vernon’s attention after they waved to Seokmin as he walks away down the street. He gets butterflies in his stomach again when he sees Vernon smirking at him. 

“So where are you headed to now?” Vernon asks. 

“I don’t know.” Seungkwan still feels a bit shakened about Vernon. Probably because he looks so wonderful and admirable, he can’t stop feeling nervous around him. “I might go play some volleyball later.” 

“Oh, Seokmin told me you play! That’s really cool!” Vernon face blooms and it makes Seungkwan feel shy as the tip of his foot swings unnoticeably on the ground. 

“Then, do you want to come watch me play?” Seungkwan asks, his eyes almost widened along with his grin as he realizes he is using unintentional communication. He’s obviously asking him out so he laughs it off to the side then whispers with his eyes wandering around the gray brick wall, his cheek rising to a shade of pink from embarrassment. “It’s not like I’m asking you on a date or something.” 

“Well, I consider it a date.” There is a pause, their eyes sparkle from the crispy morning sun. Vernon’s smile illuminates brighter than the sunlight as Seungkwan slowly grabs his hand, locking their fingers together. 

“Then can we try this?” Seungkwan smiles at Vernon, trying to keep his cool from feeling nervous while bringing up their intertwined hands. 

“You mean, let’s hold hands.” Vernon’s cheeks turn pink too. 

“Yeah, I mean that.” Seungkwan giggles. His shaking heart makes him not be able to say the actual words because he has never felt like this before, but at least he likes it and he hopes Vernon likes it too. 

As they start to walk together hand-in-hand, Seungkwan hopes to know more about Vernon and his pumpkin pie encounters as the violet butterfly flies behind them, passing by them before it heads toward to morning sky.


End file.
